Social Facilitation Theory - Explained
What is Social Facilitation Theory?
Written by Jason Gordon
Updated at May 11th, 2022
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Table of Contents
What is the Social Facilitation Theory? What are the Types of Social Facilitation?What is Social Inhibition?What is the Social Facilitation Theory?
The social facilitation theory, presented by Norman Triplett, posits that individuals will perform differently based upon the presence of observers. Specifically, individuals tend to perform better on easy or well-rehearsed tasks and worse on complex tasks or new ones.
The presence of others can either be real, implied, or even imagined.
What are the Types of Social Facilitation?
The two types of social facilitation are as follows:
- Audience effect: This refers to an individual's performance being better while doing a task in front of an audience.
- Co-action effects: This refers to an individual's performance being better in a specific task just because other people are doing the same task.
What is Social Inhibition?
When a task is complicated or challenging, social facilitation is less likely to occur. Instead, it leads to social inhibition - the tendency to perform tasks poorly or slowly in the presence of others.
The type of audience that is present also has an impact on an individual's performance level, for example, a supportive crowd v/s a hostile crowd.